Today, we deployed a new release to Clive, the Encoding.com platform and it’s so big that we brought everything but the kitchen sink!

We’ve been busy in the lab over the last development cycle.  Here’s what we released today:

Our iOS Adaptive Bitrate processing is now 100% faster. iOS adaptive bitrate encoding is our most popular mobile preset and until today, we were encoding all the different segments and bitrates that comprise your iOS stream serially on a single CPU (long story…don’t ask).  Now, we send each different chunk to a separate CPU and encode them all in parallel resulting in huge accelerated overall encoding times for iOS output… our benchmarking has shown processing time cut in half!

Save Custom Encoding Profiles. Whether you customize one of our presets, or create one of your own, you can now save custom presets for future use in the web interface or via the API.  To save a custom preset, login into the client interface, click Add Media  –> Add Task, customize your encoding profile and click “Save custom Preset.”  This profile will now be available in your output format drop menu or can be used in any subsequent API calls, <output>[PRESET_NAME]</output>.

Turbo is now even faster. Late last year, we upgraded all of our default encoding jobs to faster machines with more memory and computing power.  Today, we have gone one step further and upgraded our Turbo encoding to super high-end 64bit 8-core machines with over 17GB of memory.  From our benchmarking, we experienced speed gains of 50% over the current Turbo encoding option.  If you combine the new Turbo with our parallel iOS encoding, you can see speed advancements of up to 150%!

Apple ProPres HQ422 Decoding. I think this feature speaks for itself. I bet we’re even more excited about it than you are!

Thumbnail Intervals. Thumbnails are very popular and used by clients on most of our encoding jobs. Previously, there were two ways to specify a thumbnail: as a percentage of total length (ex. 25%, 50% 75%) or at a particular time stamp (ex. hh:mm:ss.ms).  Now, we’ve added a third method: second intervals.  Simply add any whole positive integer and the “!” symbol  (ex. <time>5!</time>) and we will create thumbnails at every 5 second interval for your entire video’s run time.  This greatly improves the efficiency of your API requests allowing you to specify multiple thumbnails in a single output task.

Set Aspect Ratio Flag. Since many broadcast formats use proprietary aspect ratio flags that are not often recognized by third-party systems, the Set Aspect Ratio Flag is important.  QuickTime flags, such as PAR (pixel aspect ratio) and DAR (display aspect ratio), have been the primary offenders since most professional editing systems use various QuickTime codecs as their edit format. This setting allows you to lock the output aspect ratio to achieve the best results <set_aspect_ratio>[ASPECT_RATIO]</set_aspect_ratio>.

Noise Reduction Filter. At low bitrates, it is increasingly important to improve the quality of noisy video sources such as films containing lots of grain or video shot in low light. Our  new Noise Reduction Filter give you control over both luma and chroma values for fine-tuning your output image quality
<noise_reduction>luma_spatial:chroma_spatial:luma_temp</noise_reduction>.

New MPEG2 Options (keyframes, bframes gop). We now offer advanced mpeg-2 encoding parameters for both GOP structure and cadence. Closed GOPs with scene detection are ideal for delivery to many STBs (Set-Top-Boxes) like Tivo and Roku. The Strict GOPs option locks the size to your keyframe value and is necessary for some hardware DRM solutions. We now also provide mpeg-2 keyframe presets for both DVD and Long-GOP output, as well as the option to turn B-frames on/off. This greatly increases compatibility with a wide range of mpeg-2 players and chipsets.

<format>

<output>mpeg2</output>

<keyframe>[12|15|25|30]</keyframe>

<bframes>[2|0]</bframes>

<gop>[cgop|sgop]</gop>

</format>

Lot’s of other cool fixes. Added ability to restart a single task in the client interface and API(instead of the entire job).  Fixed watermarking issue when encoding for VP6 Flix. Fixed edge case where CloudFiles uploads were happening twice.  Improved percentage returned on GetStatus API call. Added a restart button for Watch Folders.   Added Support for Chrome 9 and the client interface.  Fixed “bind port” error with iPhone streaming.  Improved stability of Instant Encoding and added support for this feature in the client interface.